Making Connections

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In a recent article an Isshinryu practitioner made a connection from an Isshinryu kata to Aikido. I have come to understand a certain perspective about such connections because as readers of this blog and my other blogs know, I make connections all the time yet do these connections mean that the one end of that connection actually is about the other end of the connection? Not really because as say one style or system was taught and studied in the beginning in all likelihood was not connected but because of the analysis and synthesis process, as I am slowly discovering from Boyd’s Cycle and Discourse studies, allows such creative connections in order to see how things may, might or could work now.

In the article the person didn’t actually say that the kata in question had anything to do with Aikido and didn’t make that connection a matter of whether that connection was actually real, i.e., in other words that the study of Aikido had anything to do with the creation of that kata or the bunkai of that kata and so on. It is just a way to see into study, practice, training and experiences in our martial disciplines and it DOES NOT MEAN that the connection being made is actually a connection from reality but rather a connecting made by an individual for a particular analysis of what each end of that connection can possibly mean or have anything to do with intent. 

Making connections in a analysis and synthesis fashion is not about making some sort of connection so that one may or might believe that what they do has some value such as when folks make connections to first generation students along with the systems/styles master for some ego driven specialness to set some sort of special state of being that no one else can lay claim, etc.

For every connection made there are as many others who can refute such connections for any number of reasons that leads to something even more important, i.e., “Just because someone can make a connection and just because someone else can refute that does not make either one either right or wrong!” If that connection or lack thereof works for that individual then it matters to them and has not relevance to anyone else who can or cannot make the same or similar connection.

Making connections is about opening our minds to every possibility possible regardless. Making connections is about how we analyze our processes toward experience and applicability to every facet of our existence. Making connections is necessary for analysis so that synthesis becomes possible without being obstructed by perceived set stagnate notions from belief systems, it is about the constant changes of nature itself.

Make connections, analyze them and embrace those comments regardless so that you validate and confirm such analysis as an  intricate part of making changes, a necessary part of making changes, so that when you create something unique to you, you then synthesize that something into relevance until your analysis and synthesis once again inspires the creativity of relevant and beneficial change. 

Ain’t life a hoot?

p.s. when I see such connections and when I achieve such connections it just validates and confirms that even with a perceived difference by the use of styles and systems that in truth all of them are children of principles, both major and minor, that are the exact same from system to system, from style to style, from Sensei to Sensei and from practitioner to practitioner. 

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